


Q.C, call home

by Nemainofthewater



Series: plausible deniability [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe- Canon Divergence, Don't copy to another site, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, post 4x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 03:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18541114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Quentin makes a call. Eliot rallies the troops. They’re going to get him back.Takes place after ‘Plausible Deniability’ but can probably stand alone.





	Q.C, call home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit more serious than the other fics in the series but does have a happy ending!  
> Typed in my phone while on holiday: the most annoying thing is I have no idea how long it is. Also some words may have been autocorrected weirdly: sorry in advance!

Honestly Eliot thinks he’s going crazy when he first hears it. 

 

He’s sat on his bed in the infirmary (where he’s been stitched together like a piece of cloth) and staring at a bowl of fruit that Fen had dropped off. Particularly staring at the ripe peach smack dab in the middle of the arrangement. 

 

And it hurts. Badly. Because the thing that has been driving him through the unknown months that he’s been delving through the Monster’s memories (interspersed with reliving his own mistakes), the thing that made him want to do something more than just... lie down and give up and watch Lost with Charlton in his Happy Place... Was thinking of getting out and being brave. Of fixing what he had broken. 

 

I mean, who the hell knows if he’d actually have done it. Eliot likes to think that he could have been brave for once in his god damn life, but really, who’s he kidding?

 

Well, coward or not they’re never going to find out. Because Quentin is dead. Oh god. He’s dead. 

 

(What was the point? What was the point in surviving, in facing his worst memories to get a message out if he didn’t even to get to see Quentin before the end?)

 

He knows that Margo is worried about him. She’s been dosing his food with potion: she probably thinks she’s being subtle but Eliot knows the taste intimately. 

 

And he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t ok? Because although it might be easier to just... let go and meet Q again, he couldn’t do that to Margo. Not when she’s already lost one of her best friends. 

 

So yeah. When the banana, perched jauntily on top of the bowl, starts ringing he can’t be blamed for thinking that it’s just his meds reacting to the potion in new and fun ways. 

 

He picks it up anyway. Because what has he got to lose? 

 

“Hello?”

 

“El, thank god.”

 

He nearly slams the offending piece of fruit down. Because... that’s Quentin. His hands tremble and he grips the banana so hard that it start to split. 

 

“Quentin...?” He asks, voice trembling, “I- fuck I’ve finally lost my mind.”

 

“No you haven’t, I swear El. Penny 40, he- Wait no. We don’t have time for this. Look it’s a long story and I only have ten minutes before the reference librarian comes back. So I need you to listen to me carefully, ok?”

 

There’s a rustling sound. 

 

“I need you to find enough living clay to make me a body. And then I er need you to get Dee’s grimoire and look at the spells on page-“ another rustle “654. There should be a spell there to guide my soul back.”

 

“Dee- the Elizabethan alchemist? That book is so restricted that I’m not even sureHenry has a copy. But- I think I know where I can get one.”

 

“Good. That’s good,” Quentin says. He sounds exhausted. Can the dead sound tired? Or is it just a Quentin thing? Eliot longs to take him in his arms, and smooth the little furrow between his brows. 

 

“I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to call,” Quentin says, “Everyone’s looking for me down here and there’s only so much Penny can do to put them off.”

 

“Wait,” Eliot blurts out, heart pounding. He still isn’t sure whether this is some product of his delirious brain, or if he’s finally snapped. 

 

(Or if its real. Please god let it be real)

 

But... if there’s anything the last year has taught him, it’s that things can go to shit at a moment’s notice. And he doesn’t want to lose his chance again. 

 

“I was wrong,” he says quickly, “I was stupid and I was cowardly and of course fifty years means something. And when you come back Q, I am going to spend every day of my life making sure you know that I chose you. That I’ll always choose you.”

 

“Oh,” says Quentin and there’s a hitch in his voice. A vulnerability. 

 

“I. I have to go. The librarian will be coming back any minute and I can’t get caught. Don’t forget-“

 

“Dee’s grimoire. Page 654. I won’t forget Q. I promise.”

 

There’s a pause. And then a click and the banana goes silent. 

 

#

 

“Kady, please. You’re the only one I can think of who can get that much living clay that quickly.”

 

Eliot has dragged himself out of bed (against Lipson’s express instructions and he’s dead meat if she, or god forbid Margo, catch him) and tracked down Kady at Marina’s apartment. 

 

“Damn it Eliot, sit down before you fall down,” she snaps. Beside her Pete is hovering, looking worried and also incredibly ineffectual. 

 

“No,” Eliot says, “Not until you swear you’ll find the living clay I need.”

 

“I’m not- look. Eliot. I want to believe that Quentin managed to contact you, that he’s got some master plan to get out of the underground. But I know how you feel. I remember what I was like when Penny...when he died. And I don’t want you to do what I did. If you haven’t noticed, Julia’s a little low on godly power at the moment.”

 

“Why does everyone think I’m going to kill myself?” Eliot asks. 

 

(Without rancor. Because... because they’d seen what a mess he was after Mike, even if none of them had thought to actually help him. And if he had been that self destructive over Mike, a guy he’d only known for a few weeks, what would he be like after losing Quentin?)

 

He snorts. “Fine,” he says, “So you’re not going to help. Story of my life. I’ll do it by myself. I can’t blame you for doubting I suppose,” he continues, “God knows I doubted when I heard that banana ringing-“

 

Kady raises her hand. 

 

“Did you say banana?” she asks, “Quentin called you by banana phone?”

 

“Yes, I realise it sounds like a fever dream but after the fucking whimsy we’ve seen in Fillory is it really so hard to-“

 

“No,” says Kady, “That’s not what I was going to say.”

 

She shares a long look with Pete. 

 

“Do you know anyone...?” She asks. He nods. 

 

“It’ll be expensive. But I can call in some favours.”

 

“Do it,” she orders. 

 

“What just happened?” Eliot asks. 

 

“What happened is that we’re going to get your boy back.”

 

#

 

Eliot pops a stitch on his excursion to New York, pleasing no one, especially himself as Margo asks (bullies) people into babysitting him so that he doesn’t do something as ‘fucking moronic’ ever again. 

 

Which... isn’t optimal. But it does give him the opportunity to get the grimoire. 

 

It’s Alice’s turn to babysit. 

 

Ever since Quentin died they’d declared an uneasy truce: they didn’t like each other but they understood one another. And wasn’t that a bitch. 

 

Eliot knows Alice. Knows that she never gives up when there’s even the slightest possibility of succeeding: look at Charlie. And though she hadn’t successfully brought him back from being a niffin, this time she had the rest of them to support her. 

 

“Did you manage to find it?” Eliot asks. Alice glances around quickly to make sure they’re alone. Then she reaches behind her into some sort of pocket dimension (and when the fuck had she learnt to do that?) and pulls out the book. 

 

It’s heavy. Covered in ominous symbols that Eliot doesn’t recognised and bound in...

 

“Is that-“ Eliot chokes out. 

 

Alice nods miserably. “Baby skin.”

 

Eliot shudders. “Please tell me that only one copy of this book exists.”

 

“There were seven of them made.”

 

“Do we know who-“ Eliot shakes himself. No. Best not to think of it. 

 

Alice gingerly flicks the book open to the right page. The spell looks horribly complicated and is in a language that Eliot’s never seen before. 

 

“Enochian,” Alice says, “The language of angels.”

 

“Well let’s hope none of them turn up,” Eliot mutters. He knows his bible. It’d be hard not to, growing up with his family. And he doesn’t want any four-faced flaming wheels turning up. 

 

(He’s accepted at this point that if angels do exist, and there’s no reason that they shouldn’t, then they’re likely to be colossal dicks)

 

“I’ve managed to translate the spell we need to do,” Alice says, “And... it’s doable. But we’re going to need all of us. The ritual specifically calls for seven people, plus the fulcrum. That’s going to be you by the way, as you’re the one Quentin managed to contact.”

 

“Well fuck,” Eliot says, “There are only seven of us.”

 

“I thought maybe Fen...?”

 

Eliot shakes his head. “No she’s off negotiating a peace treaty between Loria and West Loria. Both Idri and Ru like her.”

 

Alice gives a quick, tentative smile. 

 

“Well she is very likeable,” she agrees. 

 

“Yeah. She is.”

 

Fen is like a little ray of sunshine in human form. Complete with the ability to completely fuck you up if you don’t take the proper precautions. 

 

“Maybe Pete...?” Eliot half-heartedly suggests, but Alice is already shaking her head. 

 

“No. It has to be someone that Quentin knows and trusts. And no offence to Pete but he’s...” she hesitate. 

 

“Pretty sleezy,” Eliot says. 

 

“Maybe...” Alice says. “Do you think that Fogg would work? I mean no one trusts him really, but he does know Quentin. There’s a connection there.”

 

“A connection from watching us all die 39 times. Still. It looks like he’s the best chance we’ve got.”

 

#

 

The ritual is set up. The Questers (plus whatever the fuck Henry is) have been gathered, are are standing in the cliched ritual circle. The golem has been prepared (and that was an awkward arts and crafts session, carefully avoiding Alice and Julia’s eyes as he lovingly sculpts Q’s inner thigh), and placed on an altar a couple of feet away. All they need now is the magic. 

 

(Eliot tries to avoid looking at the golem. Because it’s a perfect likeness of Quentin, but it’s a Quentin that’s still and pale and not moving)

 

Eliot takes a deep breathe. And reaching down past the panic and the fear and the little voice saying ‘this won’t work’ he summons fire. 

 

The bonfire ignites with a roar, and the painstakingly drawn runes (in blood. Eliot’s blood. Why does it always have to be bodily fluids?) start to glow. 

 

“Does that mean it’s working?” Josh asks. 

 

“Either that or Eliot’s drug taking days left him a lot more fucked up than we realised.”

 

“We don’t have a lot of time to get the beacon set up,” Alice says sharply, “So less talking and more chanting.”

 

“Look who’s got her bitch on,” Margo says approvingly. Then she moves forward, holding Quentin’s crown, and the rest of them start chanting. 

 

This is the crucial part of the ritual. They all have to sacrifice something that they associate with Quentin, something that has significance. 

 

(Really though Penny. An egg??)

 

One by one they move forward until it’s only Eliot left. He steps out of the circle, which closes behind him, clutching the peach to his chest. He can feel the magic around them, old and powerful. Hopefully Quentin can feel it too. 

 

He closes his eyes and gathers the seven strands, weaving them together in his mind. All of the care and love and hope. There’s only one thing left to do. He tosses his peach into the flames, and it hurts. Because it’s not just a peach, it’s the past that they shared and the potential future that they could have together. And it’s burning. 

 

Be brave, he reminds himself. 

 

And then he plunges the twisted strands down into the ground, hopefully forming a bridge between the realms of the living and the dead. 

 

He holds it. 

 

He’s acutely aware of the heat of the fire. 

 

He holds it. 

 

He can feel the sweat pouring down his forehead. 

 

He holds it. 

 

There’s a faint wetness at his side: he might have popped his stitches again. 

 

He holds it. 

 

He’s trembling with the effort and he’s not sure how much longer he can stand for. 

 

He holds it. 

 

And- there! Coming toward him. A presence he knows better than his own. 

 

Quentin. 

 

He wants to collapse in relief but he can’t. He’s the fulcrum. Around him the chanting reaches a fevered pitch. 

 

And then-

 

-Quentin gasps for breath. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read, commented and left kudos on the other works in this series. Writing these has been cathartic and reading your comments has really helped me deal with the finale. Sending hugs and good thoughts to everyone!  
> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


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